Pennsylvania congressman hopes to follow in father's footsteps

WASHINGTON — When Bud Shuster lorded over transportation decisions on Capitol Hill, Pennsylvania received hundreds of millions of dollars for road and bridge projects — many hand-picked by the state's lawmakers.

It was 1998, the federal government boasted a surplus and lawmakers were eager to attach their names to popular projects back home, like an overhaul of Route 412 that helped finance new possibilities for former steel property in south Bethlehem. Shuster, an Altoona-area congressman, wrote legislation that increased highway money over six years and passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Today on Capitol Hill, the government is broke, "earmark" is a dirty word and bipartisan compromise is rare. Yet Shuster's son, Bill, who in 2001 filled his father's congressional seat, hopes to take the reins of the House transportation panel his father chaired.

But this is not his father's Congress.

"It certainly is harder now," said Jack Schenendorf, a Washington, D.C., attorney who worked as the transportation panel's chief of staff under Bud Shuster. "There's going to be a big effort in Congress dealing with the deficit, cutting back on the size of the federal government. … It's swimming upstream."

States like Pennsylvania, with the nation's largest share of structurally deficient bridges — in Lehigh and Northampton counties, 16.5 percent and 19.6 percent of bridges, respectively, are deficient — are hamstrung by a lack of federal investment and long-term certainty about federal funding. Income from a federal fuel tax on each gallon of gasoline has not kept pace with needed spending, and new taxes are not a politically viable option in Congress.

As a result, Pennsylvania receives only slightly more in annual federal funding for highways and bridges now than it did 14 years ago, when the senior Shuster was in charge — $1.6 billion now vs. $1.2 billion then. And Congress has kept federal transportation programs limping along with short-term extensions that hobble states looking to plan long-term projects.

Also, the increasing cost of construction materials means the available money doesn't go as far, said Jason Wagner, managing director of the Pennsylvania Highway Information Association.

Tuesday evening, lawmakers returned to the House floor for the first time since late September. U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster stayed later than almost anyone else, shuffling among colleagues like a high school student running for class president.

In a brief interview afterward, on the Capitol building marble steps, Shuster acknowledged that finding a funding model will be the toughest challenge, and he refused to endorse any specific ideas.

"We've got to look at all the options, I'm not going to say yes or no or box myself in, or draw a line in the sand," he said.

Shuster wrote to his Republican peers last week, formally asking for the transportation chairmanship, and a decision is expected after the Thanksgiving holiday break. A GOP steering committee will recommend members for chairmanships to the Republican caucus.

When the senior Shuster ran the committee, he was a larger-than-life power broker responsible for doling out coveted federal dollars that would give members a ribbon-cutting ceremony photo op. Today the committee chairman has to fight for every transportation dollar.

In those days, staying in Shuster's good graces was essential to score political points back home. Shuster reportedly kept a card in his front shirt pocket with names of lawmakers he favored on one side and ones who had crossed him on the other. When a lawmaker asked for a favor, he simply consulted the list.

Today the committee chairman doesn't have any earmark bargaining chips.

In a phone interview, the former chairman, now 80 years old, defended earmarks, standing by his long-held belief that members of Congress should pick and choose which projects should be funded in their districts. (An earmark is a special project approved for one or more lawmakers.)

"Angels in heaven don't decide where highways are built; it's a political process," Shuster said, repeating a line he's used for at least 20 years. He said he hoped his son would be able to reinforce "the real solid justification for special projects."

For the last two years, the Republican-led House has banned them entirely because of their reputation as being wasteful and driven more by politics than need. Most notorious was the multimillion-dollar "Bridge to Nowhere" to an island in Alaska. But the younger Shuster did not reject the possibility of bringing earmarks back.

"Throughout our history Congress decided how to spend the money and the executive branch executes, so I think there is a place for it — done responsibly," Congressman Shuster said.